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“SCHEDULE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S9311-S9312 on July 14, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SCHEDULE
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, today the Senate will continue to work through the appropriations process by beginning consideration of H.R. 2658, the Department of Defense appropriations bill. Last week the Senate was able to complete the military construction appropriations bill and the legislative branch appropriations bill. The hard work of Chairman Stevens, Senator Campbell, Senator Hutchison, and the Democratic leader enabled us to work swiftly on those measures.
We are expected to continue this work by completing action on several more appropriations measures this week. Two additional bills are ready for action. They are the Homeland Security bill and the Labor-HHS-
Education bill.
With respect to the Defense appropriations bill today, the two managers will be here throughout the afternoon and, therefore, Senators should be prepared to come to the floor to offer their amendments. Any votes ordered on those amendments will be stacked to begin at approximately 5:15 or 5:30. If an amendment is not available for a vote at that time, it would be my intent to have a vote on an executive nomination. Later this afternoon we will announce the precise time and subject of today's vote. We will have busy sessions this week to complete the bills I have previously mentioned. Therefore, rollcall votes can be expected each day.
I also want to take a moment this afternoon to thank Chairman Lugar for his hard work and diligence throughout last week's consideration of the State Department authorization. I had hoped that the bill could have been completed last week. However, a number of extraneous issues not related to the underlying subject slowed the bill's passage. It is important and it is appropriate for the Senate to pass a State Department authorization as well as foreign aid authorization. Every Member does have a right to amend, but I would encourage Members to show restraint and allow the Senate to complete its work on this measure. There will be other opportunities for these nongermane amendments, and I hope we will be able to resume the bill for amendments that relate to the issues of the Department of State and foreign aid.
On Thursday of this week, Prime Minister Tony Blair will be addressing a joint meeting of Congress in the afternoon. We will have further information and announcements about that as the week goes forward. I look forward to a productive week, a very busy week, and do believe we will make tremendous progress in terms of advancing these appropriations bills.
Mr. REID. If the distinguished majority leader is finished, I would like to ask a couple questions.
When we complete the work on the Defense bill, which hopefully will be this week--I am sure the leader wants it earlier rather than later--
do you have an idea yet what bill we will go to after that?
Mr. FRIST. We intend to go to either Homeland Security or Labor-HHS. I will turn to the distinguished chairman either now or in a few minutes to comment on that as we go forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we are ready to go on either bill. We are trying to assure the presence of the ranking members and chairmen of those subcommittees. I prefer to give you that information later today if I may.
Mr. REID. The second question or statement is that Senator Byrd and others have no problem going forward on this bill today. We would just ask that there be no agreements on time until that is cleared with this side. Agreements on time and things of that nature, we would like to be advised if there are time agreements that are needed. We would be happy to be cooperative, but we would at least like to know about that.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I yield to the chairman.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we know of only two amendments so far that may come toward this bill. We would encourage Members to come forward and tell us if they are going to offer amendments. It would be our hope that we could proceed with this bill in a fashion that we could come to a final conclusion tomorrow afternoon and vote on this bill tomorrow afternoon and take up one of the other bills so we can move these bills along. This bill came out of our committee unanimously. We have taken care of most of the amendments in our committee. We will cooperate with you in every way to give you advance notice on the votes. If we can find out the number of amendments that are coming, we might even be able to make arrangements that we would vote early tomorrow morning on the amendments on this bill and just have one vote on the executive calendar.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, through you to the distinguished chairman of the committee, I have spoken to Senator Byrd today, and he may want to give a statement today. But he has indicated he certainly does tomorrow. He and I have talked. There are a number of people who at this stage have not indicated they want to offer amendments, but they do wish to make statements on this very important bill. At this stage there are four or five Senators wishing to do that. That will take a little bit of time in the morning but should not take a lot of time. I only know of four or five. And as soon as I learn about amendments, I will certainly let the distinguished ranking member know about those amendments.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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